Welcome to the P-I's Real Estate blog. Here an assortment of real estate professionals discuss contemporary housing issues, facts, analysis and other information about state and national housing, plus rental markets, current real estate conditions, forecasts, gossip and opinion. They all make their living in the real-estate business in the Seattle area. But this blog isn't about selling. It's about sharing what they know or believe about the market — in their own words.

Real Estate Agents Are Not Licensed To Give Legal Advice!

Real estate agents are authorized to practice law in a very limited way. They can fill out forms, prepared by attorneys. Anything beyond that is arguably the unauthorized practice of law. How much beyond that is an open question. Would striking a single word from a sentence be okay? Striking a sentence or paragraph? Adding the word “not” before another word?

One thing however is perfectly clear. Agents are not authorized to give legal advice. Whenever that type of topic comes up, your answer should include something like: “The answer to this question is legal in nature, and you should really consult your own attorney for an answer.” I suspect it would be okay to then give your opinion, but after that you should then stress the need for an attorney.

The example that brought this up comes from this post at Trulia. The question was when a tenant had to move out after a foreclosure. The first three to answer were agents–from other states no less. [Edit: All three of the first answers have now been deleted from the site.] None of them gave any useful information at all. Some gave incorrect information. None suggested that the person contact an attorney.

For this particular answer, the law has recently changed. Both Washington and the federal government have enacted protections for tenants which might be applicable to the person asking the question. Rather obviously the out of state agents wouldn’t know about the Washington law change, but I’m not sure how many in-state agents would know about the changes. In fact, just yesterday I had an attorney ask me about the interaction of the two statutes. She was uncertain, and she probably knows more about it than just about any agent in the state (including myself).

Another example would be when a sale flips at inspection and the seller wants to keep the earnest money. Well, we all know the answer to that, right? WRONG! You know the likely answer. Any answer you give should also reference getting advice from an attorney.

If you think that’s extreme, just look at the uproar that the Bull case caused over errors in Form 17 liability. Attorneys cannot even agree on whether that case is a change in the law or not, or its application to other areas of the law. What kind of answer would you have given prior to the Bull case? What kind of answer would an attorney have given? Would you want to be legally responsible for being wrong?

So remember–always suggest the need for legal counsel to determine legal consequences. In some extreme cases even insist on it.